Thoughts on the T

Back in May I proudly presented one of my latest works to you: The book New Media Culture: Phänomene der Netzkultur, edited by Christian Stiegler, Patrick Breitenbach and Thomas Zorbach, to which I contributed chapters on participatory culture and ultra-fandom (the latter in collaboration with Thomas Zorbach). Unfortunately, the book is only available in German at the moment, but thanks to a special kind of book launch, English-speaking audiences now also have the opportunity to experience some of the book’s highlights via a late-night show presented by Marcus John Henry Brown. You can watch the entire New Media Culture Late Night

Game of Thrones is unlike many others series in that it is on-air only for a few weeks each year, meaning that the show’s producers face a very particular dilemma: Keep fan passion and interest going for the rest of the year when other shows and content are competing for the fans’ attention. Since its premiere, Game of Thrones has always resorted to unusual forms of advertisement. For example, in 2011, food trucks serving delicacies described in the novels headed to Los Angeles and to New York and influencers received scents and scrolls reflecting the world of Westeros, while in 2013, a dragon took

I’m very happy to be able to share one of my latest projects with you today: Two chapters in the newly published academic book New Media Culture: Mediale Phänomene der Netzkultur, edited by Christian Stiegler, Patrick Breitenbach, and Thomas Zorbach. New Media Culture is an introductory book on the developments, trends and socio-cultural changes brought about by new media, and it is primarily meant for class-room and lecture environments. It’s also a great book to browse through and to reflect on what’s happening in our new media fuelled world. My contribution to this book consists of two chapters: “Partizipative Kultur:

The first notable case or example from SXSW that I would like to share with you in more detail is from the session “The Link Between Social Media and the Box Office“, presented by David Herrin, Head of Research at the United Talent Agency. Herrin and his team have developed a tool called “Preact” which allows them to monitor social media conversations surrounding an upcoming movie, up to 365 days in advance. Tracking Dimensions Preact doesn’t measure views but what UTA calls “engagement”, i.e. the volume of posts regarding the movie. The resulting hits are classified into positive and negative

As some of you may have gathered from my Twitter feed, I was back at SXSW this year. Just like last year, my time at SXSW has been incredibly inspirational and educational, and there are a few key entertainment trends that I would like to share with you. On top of that, there will be summaries of two panels that I found demonstrated the current entertainment trends according to SXSW best. Let’s jump right in. There are three key entertainment trends that I was able to identify at SXSW: Continued efforts to create immersive experiences

For the last 18 months, I have been part of a team working on a project that is very dear to me and that I would like to introduce to you today: The MAUERSCHAU app. Put very simply, MAUERSCHAU offers interactive tours of Berlin by means of augmented reality functions. However, in terms of content, MAUERSCHAU tours are much more than you’re typical “this is where that happened in year XYZ”! All MAUERSCHAU tours center on real-life experiences of contemporary witnesses who lived during the time of the Berlin Wall. You can literally follow those witnesses’ footsteps by visiting the same

This is the fifth part of my SXSW 2014 re-caps. You can find a complete list of all re-caps here. Today’s re-cap is about my favorite panel from SXSW 2014, entitled How Jane Austen Conquered Social Storytelling. The two panelists, Bernie Su and Jay Bushman, explained how they made their three web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Welcome to Sanditon, and Emma Approved true transmedia stories spread across different social media platforms. Not only have all three stories become immensely successful, but they actually ended up creating revenue through monetization. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries Background The LBD originally ran from April 2012 to March 2013 as a

This is part 5 of my SXSW 2014 re-cap. You can find all other re-caps here. Issues of privacy in the age of the internet had their own sub-track at SXSW Interactive. There were skype-in calls with Julian Assange and Edward Snowden amongst other panels, and while I was only able to attend the call with Julian Assange, it was very interesting, however. Assange’s points regarding the current, overall state of the (political) internet: The governments’ often extreme response to the Wikileaks and NSA revelations (e.g. forced smashing of hard drives at The Guardian by UK authorities, persecution of whistleblowers) shows